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GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY 

LIFE 



BY 



J. R. MILLER 

AUTHOR OF "SILENT TIMES," "MAKING THE 
MOST OF LIFE," " IN PERFECT PEACE," ETC. 



" My lost, my own, and I 
Shall have so much to see together by and by." 

— George Klingle. 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



U8fc*RY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
JUN 6 I90f 
/] Copyright En*y 

fcLASS €X XXe.,No. 

J 7 f6><+9 

COPY B. ' 



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Copyright, 1907, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



Published, September, 1907. 



Many look out longingly toward another life, in 
which they implicitly believe, yet of which they 
can know nothing save in the dimmest, most 
shadowy way. Loved ones are taken from them 
into that strange land, and they long then more 
than ever to know about the country that is the 
new home of their friends — its beauty, its joys, 
its fellowships, its occupations. The Bible does 
not lift the veil, but it gives many glimpses of the 
heavenly life. It is the purpose of this little book 
to note some of these glimpses. 

J. E. M. 

Philadelphia, U.S.A. 



3 



" O Thou who never tak'st from Thy beloved, 
Except to give them more, 
When most is gone from our sweet earthly good, 
Then most Thou hast in store. 

" No aching heart nor empty arms again; 
For through these passing hours, 
Safe in Thy home and free from every stain, 
Are Thy beloved and ours." 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY 

LIFE. 

Heaven's gates never open outward. Count- 
less multitudes enter them, to look upon the glories 
within, but none come back to report to us what 
they have seen. We often wish we might look 
upon the beauty of the heavenly home to see what 
it is, but our wish cannot be granted. Only a 
thin veil separates heaven from earth, but that 
veil is impenetrable. No natural eye can see the 
things that are spiritual. Once when the servant 
of Elisha was dismayed to find his master sur- 
rounded by a company of the enemy's soldiers, 
his eyes were opened and he saw an inner guard 
of horses and chariots of fire, round about Elisha. 
The angels were not summoned there that moment 
to impress the young man with his master's safety, 
nor was the vision he saw merely a vision, with 
no corresponding reality. His eyes were opened 
for a moment, that he might have a glimpse of what 
was always there unseen. 

5 



6 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

If our eyes were opened to see spiritual things, 
a wonderful splendor would appear on every side. 
Heaven lies about us, not only in our infancy, but 
always. Yet we cannot see it. All we can know 
of it is told us in words which are pictures only, 
revealings of heavenly things in earthly language. 
We could not understand any other language. The 
Incarnation was the divine effort, so to speak, to 
interpret God to men in words and acts which they 
could understand. The descriptions of heaven 
which we have in the Bible are efforts to give us in 
earthly language some conception of the beauty, 
the glory, the blessedness, of the things and the 
experiences of heaven. 

We need to train ourselves to think more of 
heaven. It is the home to which we are journeying, 
and our thoughts should often be upon it. We 
need its inspiration and uplifting in our life. 
When one is travelling toward his home on a dark 
night, when the road is long and he is weary, he 
gets courage and strength from the knowledge that 
in a little while he shall reach the place so dear to 
him, where his loved ones are. A clear confidence 
in our hearts that heaven is waiting for us at the 
end would make us braver and stronger in all our 
earthly experiences of toil, care, disappointment, 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 7 

and sorrow. This that we call life is not life — 
it is but the way to life. The joys we have here, 
sweet as they may be, are but hints and beginnings 
of the full, perfect joys that await us. The attain- 
ments and achievements of our earthly experience, 
which are the fruit of so much toil, pain, and 
struggle are only the faint prophecies and promises 
of what we shall attain and achieve in the heavenly 
life. 

We miss much if we do not have in our life here 
the influence of the heavenly hope. A boy sat on 
a doorstep, in the gathering dusk of the evening, 
holding a string in his hand. A passer-by, notic- 
ing the boy's eager zest and interest, asked him 
what he was doing that made him so happy. "I 
am flying my kite," was his answer. " Why, I 
see no kite," said the gentleman, sweeping the 
darkening skies with his eyes. "Neither do I," 
said the boy, " but I feel it pull." We cannot see 
heaven as we move on in this world, but if it is a 
reality to our faith, we can feel it pull upon our 
hearts as we toil and struggle under our burdens. 

People tell us sometimes that there is no profit 
in thinking about heaven while we are on the 
earth. We would better give our attention to our 
duties here than let our minds wander off among 



8 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

the stars. This is true in a sense. Gazing into 
heaven, trying to see what is within its veil, while 
we neglect the duties that wait for us every mo- 
ment, is most unprofitable living. Yet while we 
do all our earthly tasks diligently and faithfully, 
we have a right to let our thoughts and affections 
fly away to the joys that are waiting for us. The 
vision will put new zest into our hearts for the 
hard, dull task-work that fills our hands. It as- 
sures us that our work and struggles here are not 
vain. In a little while we shall be through with 
all failure, all disappointment, all sorrow, and 
shall be at home where every promise shall be real- 
ized, where all weary sowing shall find its rich har- 
vest, where every disappointment shall prove to 
have been a divine appointment. 

An oculist advised a literary worker, who came 
to him for new glasses, to go out on her porch 
several times every day, and to look for five or 
ten minutes at the mountains which were always 
in view in the distance. " The far-away look," he 
said, "will rest your eyes after your long hours 
with manuscripts and proof sheets. This will be 
better for you than new glasses." The advice 
proved most wise. She could do her prosaic task- 
work better after looking at something lofty and 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 9 

sublime. We need the far-away look to keep our 
spiritual life from losing its tone. We have so 
much to do with earthly things all the while that 
we almost forget sometimes that there is a heaven 
above us. Our work here is so strenuous, so un- 
remitting, sometimes so hard, that we scarcely get 
time to read our Bible or to pray. The tendency 
is to gravitate more and more toward earthly 
levels. We need to think often of heaven to 
keep us in mind that there is a heaven. 

There is a story of a man who in youth once 
found a gold coin on the street. Ever after, as 
he walked, he kept his eyes on the ground, looking 
for coins. He found one now and then, but he 
never saw the trees, the hills, the glorious land- 
scapes, or the blue sky. The tendency of our 
absorbed business life, with its weary grind and 
struggle, is to hold our eyes ever on the dusty 
earth, causing us to miss the sight of the things 
that are above. St. Paul's counsel is that since 
we are raised together with Christ, we should seek 
the things that are above, where Christ is. A life 
which runs only along on the ground, with no 
elevation in it, no thought of heaven or of God, 
no vision of Christ, is unworthy of a child of God. 
We should get time every day, for a little while, 



10 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

at least, to think of God, to look into the face 
of Christ, and to gaze upon the heavenly hills. 

The New Testament gives us many glimpses of 
the heavenly life. The closing chapters of Rev- 
elation contain a series of such glimpses. The 
seer had a vision of "a new heaven and a new 
earth." This probably does not mean that the 
earth and the heaven we now see are to be de- 
stroyed and a new earth and a new heaven created. 
Astronomers sometimes report seeing through their 
telescopes burning worlds, worlds passing through 
a fiery change. Probably they are not being de- 
stroyed, but only renewed, to come out of the fiery 
ordeal, at length, in new beauty. We may sup- 
pose that something like this is what is meant in 
this vision of a new earth, — not created anew but 
cleansed, made pure and holy, all the marks of sin 
and sin's curse removed. The golden age of the 
world is yet before us. There are some people 
who get so discouraged by the troubles in their 
lives and by the sin and moral failure about them, 
that they come to believe that all things are going 
to destruction. No; this is our Father's world. 
On this earth Christ died, and from one of its 
graves he rose again. This old battered globe is 
to be made new, and to be fashioned into imperish- 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 11 

able beauty. Then it will be ready to be the home 
of redeemed and regenerated men. The work of 
Christ will not be a failure. The paradise of 
beauty which was lost through sin is to be re- 
stored. 

The Bible begins with a garden of Eden, as the 
home of the unfallen man. It closes with a holy 
city, glorious and beautiful, the home of redeemed 
man. Between these two paradises comes a long 
story of sin, of failure, of sorrow, of struggle, of 
suffering, a story also of divine love and sacrifice, 
in the midst of which stands the cross. What we 
have in the closing chapters of the New Testament 
is a vision of the completed kingdom of Christ, the 
home and the life to which we are looking forward 
— the old heaven and the outworn earth made 
new. 

Take another glimpse. "The sea is no more." 
Why will there be no sea in the new earth? Is 
the sea a blot, a disfigurement, on the face of the 
earth? Would a sea on the new earth take away 
from its beauty ? We talk about the grandeur of 
the sea. We can easily suggest its advantages, 
not only the physical benefits which the earth 
receives from it, but its commercial value. Why, 
in this description of the final home of man, is the 



12 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

absence of a sea named as one of the elements of 
its beauty and blessedness ? 

No doubt the language is symbolic. The sea 
was a symbol of mystery. In ancient days men 
stood upon its shore, wondering what its waters 
covered, and what lay beyond it. They could not 
cross it in those times, and could only guess what 
was on the other side. Hence it stood for mys- 
tery. Earth is full of mystery. But in heaven 
the sea is no more — there is no mystery. Here 
life is full of strange things which we cannot 
understand, — questions which cannot be answered, 
providences in which we cannot find love, sorrows 
which stagger faith. Scarcely a day passes but we 
hear some one crying, " Why ? " and no one can give 
an answer. Why did God take away the young 
mother the other night and leave the helpless 
baby motherless? Why did he call suddenly from 
earth the strong man in the prime of his life, 
leaving his young widow to battle alone with the 
world, and without human help to provide for her 
children? We cannot answer. There is mystery 
everywhere. But in the life of heaven there will 
be no perplexities, no mysteries, no whys. The 
darkest providences of earth will then be clear. 
We shall see all unfinished things, all broken 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 13 

plans, worked out to completion and shall find 
love and beauty where all seemed mistake and 
even cruelty, when we had only part of the story 
before us. In another of the visions of the book 
of Eevelation there is a sea, but it is a sea of 
glass, clear as crystal. There is no mystery in it. 
In the life of heaven there will be no obscurity, 
nothing uncertain, nothing hid, nothing to perplex. 

The sea is always the symbol of storm and strife. 
It was dreaded in ancient times. Every reference 
in the Bible to the sea implies fear and danger. 
Even in modern times, while our wonderful scien- 
tific advances have given us a sort of mastery over 
it, making it a great highway between nations, the 
medium of commerce for the world, and while our 
ships traverse it continually, the sea is still wrath- 
ful in its power. Think of its cruel storms, of its 
wrecks, when ships are broken on its rocks, of the 
destructive energy that makes it terrible to those 
who are exposed to its fury. 

The sea, in this regard, too, is an emblem of life 
in this world, with its dangers, its cruelties, its 
storms and wrecks. But in heaven " the sea is no 
more." In the new earth, there will be no danger, 
nothing wild and terrible, no fierce storms, no wars, 
nothing to hurt or annoy. Here nature itself, with 



14 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

all its beauty and its gentle ministries is full of 
tragical things — earthquakes, volcanic fires, cy- 
clones, droughts, deserts, avalanches. But in the 
new earth, nature will be tamed, all its wildness 
and fury subdued to quietness, and will be like a 
lamb in its gentleness and peacefulness. 

The sea also suggests separation. Even now it 
is a great and seemingly impassable barrier when 
we want to get quickly to our friends who are 
beyond it, or when we want to bring them quickly 
to us. In ancient times, however, the sea seemed 
to make an altogether hopeless barrier of separa- 
tion when it parted friends. St. John was on the 
Isle of Patmos when he saw the visions of Kevela- 
tion, while his friends and loved ones were far 
away. The sea that rolled about his little rocky 
island seemed to cut him off from them relent- 
lessly and forever. There were no ships passing 
every day, or even every week, from country to 
country. In his exile there seemed no hope that 
he could ever see his friends again. We can im- 
agine St. John, sitting on the cold rocks, homesick 
and lonely, looking yearningly in the direction of 
his home, though unable to go to it, and thinking 
of the sea as most cruel, in that it separated him 
hopelessly from all that were dear to his heart. 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 15 

But in heaven "the sea is no more." Its waters 
are dried up. There will be nothing there to keep 
friends apart, or to hinder their closest and tender- 
est association. 

An aged Christian woman, alone now in the 
world, with most of hers in heaven, said to a 
friend, " If I thought I could go and speak to 
people I have known on earth, my friends and my 
loved ones, when I get to heaven, I would be will- 
ing to go to-morrow." She seemed to fear that 
heaven will be a strange place to newcomers, as 
when one coming from over the sea and arriving 
in a strange city, sees no familiar face, and meets 
no one he has ever met before, receives no wel- 
come, and finds no love waiting. But this is not 
the way it will be in heaven. The moment you 
touch the edge of the blessed country you will be 
met by those who have gone before you, and will 
be welcomed home. " The sea is no more." In 
heaven there will be nothing to separate any one 
from those he loves. 

It is no shame to our hearts to confess that 
among the dearest things in heaven will be the 
friendships begun on earth and continued there. 
These will mean far more to us than the golden 
streets, the pearl gates, and all the splendors. 



16 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

One reason we want to go to heaven is to meet 
those we love who are there, and a great part of 
the anticipated joy of heaven is the expectation 
of meeting those who have grown dear to us, and 
whom we have lost awhile. Eev. William C. Gan- 
nett writes : — 

I dreamed of Paradise — and still 
Though sun lay soft on vale and hill, 
And trees were green and rivers bright, 
The one dear thing that made delight 
By sun or stars or Eden weather, 
Was just that we two were together. 

I dreamed of heaven, with God so near I 
The angels trod the shining sphere, 
And each was beautiful ; the days 
Were choral work, were choral praise ; 
And yet in heaven's far-shining weather, 
The best still was — we were together. 

Heaven is a place of love, where all the scattered 
friendships of earth shall be gathered up, cleansed, 
enriched, purified, refined, and elevated, freed from 
all envies and jealousies, all narrowness and sordid- 
ness, and brought together in inseparable union. 
"The sea is no more." 

Take another glimpse of the heavenly life. 
" He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes." 
Earth's comfort is very sweet when it is accepted 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 17 

and allowed to enter the heart, but the best comfort 
here is only partial, and is always incomplete. The 
sorrow remains even if we acquiesce most submis- 
sively in it. The friend comes not again, nor can 
we hope that he will come to-morrow, or next week, 
and the best we can do is to consent to give him up 
and to go on without him. Comfort does not take 
away the loneliness. We can never get quite used 
to doing without him, though we know he is with 
God. The sweetest friendships are shadowed, too, 
all along their days of gladness, by the knowledge 
that there must be a separation, by and by, and one 
of us must go on alone after that. 

" A little way to walk with you, my own — 
Only a little way ; 
Then one of us must weep and walk alone 
Until God's day." 

Earth's comfort, precious as it is, is not complete. 
It is only for a little while, and then another sor- 
row will come. But in heaven God will wipe away 
every tear. This means also that there will never 
be any other tears. For one thing, there will be no 
sorrow in heaven. " Death shall be no more." 
When we join hands with our loved ones there, we 
shall have no dread of ever being separated from 
them any more. The reunion with friends will 



18 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

wipe away the tears which separation from them 
caused. It will be a blessed moment when those 
who have been long apart, one here, one there, 
meet again. The gladness of the reunion will 
make them forget all the long years of separation. 
Their new fellowship will yield such joy, such 
bliss, such fulness of love, that the memory of the 
long loneliness and sorrow will be swallowed up. 

But that is not all. On earth, the best friend- 
ships are marred ofttimes by faults, by infirmities, 
by imperfections in the life, and by rash words and 
unkindnesses. Not always are even our truest 
friends thoughtful; not always are they gentle. 
Somehow many of us go trampling with great iron- 
soled boots right through the gardens of tender 
hearts, treading down the delicate plants and 
flowers. We do not mean to grieve each other; 
we think we are exceptionally kind. Yet, igno- 
rantly and unintentionally we do things or we 
speak words which hurt and give pain. 

On the other hand, some of us are very sensitive 
and far too easily hurt by others. We misconstrue 
into rudeness words and acts which were intended 
only to be playful. We misunderstand what our 
friends say or do, imputing a wrong motive when 
only love was meant. Thus it is that many friend- 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 19 

ships never reach their best possibilities in this 
world. It takes time, too, for most of us to grow 
to the best in our friendships. Love is a lesson to 
be learned. It is a long lesson, too, and it takes a 
great while to learn it. At the best here, in the 
whole of our life, however long, we just begin to 
understand how to love. But in heaven we shall 
come together, having learned the lesson per- 
fectly, and shall find and realize friendship's richest 
possibilities. There are tears of ttimes in earth's 
truest, purest friendships, but when we meet in 
heaven, God will wipe away every tear. We shall 
never hurt nor grieve each other there. 

Another way in which God will wipe away tears 
in heaven will be by revealing to us the bless- 
ings that come out of sorrow. Some one has been 
photographing a dried tear, as it appears under the 
microscope, and describes the exquisitely beautiful 
forms — ferns, crosses, dainty frost-work — that are 
hidden in it. Earth's tears are full of blessings for 
those who shed them, trusting in Christ and sub- 
mitting to him. One of the most remarkable and 
suggestive visions St. John saw in heaven was of a 
great company that no man could number, gathered 
out of all nations, wearing white robes, with palms 
in their hands, singing a song of victory. " Who 



20 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

are these ? " it was asked. The guide explained 
that these had come out of great tribulation. 
" Therefore are they before the throne of God; 
and they serve him day and night in his temple ; 
and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his 
tabernacle over them." 

That is, these bright ones, with the white robes 
and the palm branches, had not come as one might 
think from earth's sheltered places, where they had 
never known a pain or a care, where they had ex- 
perienced only the sweetness of joy. They had 
come, rather, out of earth's great tribulations. Yet 
the hardness of their earthly experiences had not 
hurt them, had not dimmed the luster of their 
lives; rather they had grown in beauty and their 
lives had become more and more radiant in the 
trials through which they had passed. The bright- 
est glories of heaven are for those who have suffered 
most in this world. 

Dr. W. L. Watkinson tells of a flower-show in 
London, where all the flowers exhibited had been 
grown in the city. He says, " It is not much to 
grow splendid flowers in privileged places, — in 
places where there is pure air, sweet light, silver 
dew ; but think of growing palms and myrtles, roses 
and orchids, in dingy courts, in murky cellars, in 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 21 

mean back yards, on narrow window-sills, on the 
tiles, among chimney-pots, — think of growing 
prize blossoms in yellow fogs, stifling air, and amid 
the breath of the million. No wonder the Queen 
went to see this exhibition ; it was one of the most 
pathetic of shows, a splendid triumph over dark 
and hard conditions." So in St. John's vision 
these noble saints, shining in white garments and 
bearing the symbols of battle and victory, had 
come, not out of ease and kindly circumstances, not 
out of experiences of luxury, from cosey homes, from 
favored spots and genial conditions; rather they 
had won their nobleness in hard lots, in fierce 
struggle, in sharp temptation, in bitter sorrow, in 
keen suffering. 

Some of us grow impatient of our difficulties and 
hardships. We brood over them and come to think 
that we have not been fairly dealt with. Some of us 
resent our trials and think that God has not been kind, 
has not even been just with us. " I submit to you," 
wrote a young man the other day, " whether I have 
had a fair chance in life, whether God's dealing with 
me has been quite right and just." Then he told of 
certain trials and losses, certain bereavements and 
sorrows, certain disappointments and struggles 
which he had met, and then of certain wrongs and 



22 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

injustices he had suffered from those who ought 
to have been his friends. The story was one 
that drew out sympathy. But in the light of this 
heavenly vision all that had seemed so hard meant 
an opportunity for this young man to grow into 
manly strength and heroic character. Those who 
have the battles and the trials, and overcome in 
them, shall wear white robes and carry palm 
branches. They shall be among the victors at 
the last. Nothing noble is attained easily. The 
crowns of life can be won only on the fields of 
struggle. 

Thus God wipes away tears in heaven by dis- 
closing the rewards of sorrow, its outcome in 
nobler, purer, whiter life. " He shall wipe away 
every tear." 

Take another glimpse of heaven. " I will give 
unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the 
water of life freely." That means satisfying, the 
quenching of life's thirsts. In a sense our thirsts 
are satisfied when we receive Christ. We are in- 
vited to come to him and drink. One of the 
Beatitudes is for the unsatisfied. " Blessed are 
they that hunger and thirst after righteousness ; 
for they shall be filled." So thirst is a blessed 
experience. The man who has ceased to thirst 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 23 

has ceased to live and ceased to grow. To 
be satisfied is to have reached one's limit of 
growth, for after that there is no longer any desire 
for more of life and blessing. Christian life in 
this world is full of thirsts, full of longings. It 
never reaches its best possibilities. However 
much of knowledge we have gained, if we are really 
living, we are ever eager to know more. The phi- 
losopher, after his lifetime of study and research, 
spoke of himself as but like a child, picking up a 
few bright pebbles on the shore, while the great 
deep sea still lay before him, unexplored. The 
thirst for knowledge is never satisfied. 

Nor is the thirst for love. Earthly love is very 
sweet. When it is ideal, it seems to leave nothing 
to be desired. But pure and deep as it is, there 
still are thirsts in the heart after we have experi- 
enced human love's richest and best. Even divine 
grace does not altogether in this life quench the 
soul's thirsts, nor satisfy its longings. We still 
have our cravings for more and more. We may 
drink at the fountain to-day, and go away rejoicing 
in the love of Christ, but to-morrow we shall thirst 
again. The more we know of Christ, the more we 
long to know of him. The fuller and sweeter our 
fellowship with him is, the more do we desire still 



24 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

fuller and sweeter communion. The more we take 

of Christ's life into our souls, the more do we 

desire to be filled with that life. From " some of 

self, and some of thee/' the longing grows until it 

is, " Less of self, and more of thee." Still the 

yearning increases, as God's love fills the heart, 

and at last it is, " None of self, and all of thee." 

The writer of the old Psalm said he never would 

be satisfied in this world, but would be when he 

looked upon the face of God. 

" As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness ; 
I shall be satisfied, when I awake with beholding thy form." 

What the Psalmist knew about the after-life we 
cannot certainly tell. The Old Testament be- 
lievers did not have the clear and full revealing 
of immortality that was made in the New Testa- 
ment. Yet in some way, dim perhaps, as when 
one sees in a mirror darkly, he believed that one 
day he would look upon the face of God, and 
that then all his thirsts would be satisfied. We 
may say the same — some day we shall be satis- 
fied. Every longing will be answered. We shall 
be filled with love, with joy, with peace. But it 
will not be in this world. When we see Christ 
face to face, and enter into the fulness of his joy, 
we shall be satisfied. 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 25 

" Not here ! Not here ! Not where the sparkling waters 
Fade into mocking sands as we draw near ; 
Where, in the wilderness, each footstep falters — 
I shall be satisfied, but oh, not here ! 

" There is a land where every feeble pulse is thrilling 
With raptures earth's sojourners may not know ; 
Where heaven's repose each weary heart is stilling, 
And peacefully life's time-tossed currents flow. 

" Not here, where every dream of bliss deceives us, 
Where the worn spirit never gains its goal ; 
Where, haunted ever by the thoughts that grieve us, 
Across us floods of bitter memories roll. 

" Far out of sight, while yet the flesh enfolds us, 
Lies that fair country where our hearts abide ; 
And of its bliss is nought more wondrous told us 
Than these four words, ' I shall be satisfied.' 

" Satisfied ? Satisfied? The spirit's yearning 
For sweet companionship of kindred minds, — 
The silent love that here meets no returning, 
The inspiration which no language finds, — 

" Shall they be satisfied ? The soul's vague longing, 
The aching mind which nothing earthly fills ? 
Oh, what desires upon my soul are thronging, 
As I look upward to the heavenly hills ! 

" Thither my weak and weary feet are tending. 
Saviour and Lord, with thy frail child abide ! 
Guide me toward home, where, all my wanderings ending, 
I shall see thee and be satisfied." 

So heaven is to be a place of satisfaction. No 
need will be unsupplied. No want will be uiiinet. 



26 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

No craving will be unanswered. No thirst will 
be unfulfilled. The voice calls, "He that is 
athirst, let him come; he that will, let him take 
the water of life freely." 

We do not begin to realize what this assurance of 
the heavenly life means. Satisfaction ! Oh, it 
is a hungry word. It has gone through the ages 
finding no answer to its cry. There are many 
good people to whom this world has not ministered 
lavishly, has indeed ministered most scantily. 
There are some who have been bitterly disap- 
pointed in human love. They thought that they 
were getting bread, and it was only a stone. 
For promised tenderness and cherishing, they have 
had only neglect and wrong. Instead of plenti- 
ful providing, they have had want, perhaps some- 
times hunger. Instead of kindness, they have had 
only cruelty. How these will enjoy heaven's satis- 
faction of loving ! What heaven will mean to 
thousands who have had so little of human love 
here! 

There are those to whom all life has been only a 
disappointment, a failure, an alluring mirage fad- 
ing into desert sands. They have gone through 
the world with empty hands. They have known 
little of joy or of comfort. An old woman, who 



GLIMPSES OF THE IIEAVENLY LIFE. 27 

had experienced only want all her life, at the 
very best, bareness and scarcity, was taken by 
some fresh-air society to spend a day beside the sea. 
Her first exclamation, when she looked upon the 
ocean was, " I am glad that here is something there 
is enough of for everybody ! " It seemed to her 
the first time she had ever seen anything there was 
enough of. Think what heaven will mean to 
earth's hungry ones with its bread enough and to 
spare ! " I shall be satisfied with beholding thy 
form." 

Take one other glimpse. As we read the won- 
derful description of the heavenly life in the last 
chapters of the New Testament, we find that all 
the glory comes from Christ. "I am the Alpha 
and the Omega, the beginning and the end." " I 
saw no temple therein; for the Lord God the 
Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof." 
" The city hath no need of the sun, neither of the 
moon, to shine upon it : for the glory of God did 
lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb." 

Whatever else heaven may mean to us, it will, 
first of all, mean being with Christ. Here we see 
him only by faith, ofttimes dimly. Every day 
some one speaks of the difficulty of realizing the 
presence of Christ in this earthly life. We long 



28 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

to see him. Our hearts hunger for him. " We 

would see Jesus/' is our cry all the days. And 

the answer to our cry seems only an echo of our 

longing. As Tennyson puts it, man in this world 
is 

" An infant crying in the night, 
An infant crying for the light, 
And with no language but a cry." 

But when the veil of sense that hides heaven from 
our sight is rent for us, some midnight or some 
noonday, and the blessedness is suddenly revealed, 
we shall see, first of all, before we look upon any 
of the splendors of the place, Him we have loved 
though seeing him not, — our Saviour and our 
Friend, Jesus Christ. And he will wipe away 
every tear from our eyes. Being with him, we 
shall need nothing else to make our blessedness 
complete. Seeing him we shall be satisfied. See- 
ing him, we shall be like him, changed fully into 
his image. Seeing him, we shall then be with 
him forever. 

These are only a few of the glimpses of the 
heavenly life which the Scriptures give us, and 
even these are only glimpses, as when the window 
opens for a moment upon the glory and then 
quickly closes again. Indeed no earthly language 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 29 

is adequate to describe the blessedness, the joy, 
the happiness of heaven. 

Perhaps no human word gathers and holds in 
itself so much of the truest meaning of heaven 
as the word home. Home is a place of love. It is 
a place of confidence. No one doubts another at 
home. We have nothing to hide or conceal from 
each other inside home's doors. We know we are 
loved. Home is the one place where we are never 
afraid of being misunderstood. Our faults may be 
seen and known, but we are dear in spite of them. 
We find there sympathy with our sufferings, pa- 
tience with our infirmities and shortcomings. 
Heaven is home. Into it, all the children will be 
gathered. It is a place of glory, of beauty, of 
splendor, a holy place, but, best of all, it is a place 
of perfect love. 

The human element has a large place in heaven's 
dearness to our hearts. Before we have loved ones 
there we are likely to be impressed most by the 
majesty and grandeur in the descriptions. One 
writes, "As a child I thought of heaven as glo- 
rious, as the place of the divine presence, as full 
of bright angels, with never ending worship, but 
terrible in its majesty. I was not attracted to it, 
— indeed I dreaded to think of entering heaven. 



30 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

There was no one there I knew, and I would feel 
strange, lonesome ; nobody would know me or wel- 
come me. Then my little sister died, and at once 
there was a new element in heaven. There was 
one person there I knew and loved, one who would 
greet me when I entered the gates. Since that 
many loved ones have passed into heaven, and now 
I think of it no longer as cold, stately, and lonely, 
but as warm with love, full of human interest, a 
true home." 

Heaven is the place where our lives will find 
their completion. It is the glorious end that waits 
before us, where all our hopes shall have their 
fulfilment, all our dreams their realization. Much 
of our life in this world is only beginnings. We 
mean to do beautiful things, but when they are 
finished the beauty is lacking. Our worthy inten- 
tions lie as faded flowers at our feet. We tried 
sincerely and earnestly, and failed. We struggled 
hard, but were not overcomers. In heaven, how- 
ever, we shall find waiting for us, not the poor 
attainments, the broken purposes, the sad failures 
that we wept over on earth, but the things we 
sincerely tried to do, — in finished beauty now, for 
God takes our intentions, the things we meant to 
do, the things we tried to be, makes them real 



GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 31 

in heaven, and fills them out in perfectness. Of 

a noble woman one wrote : — 

" The good she tried to do shall stand as if 'twere done ; 
God finishes the work by noble souls begun.' ' 

There ought to be immeasurable inspiration in 
the fact of heaven as the culmination and com- 
pletion of life. The hope of it should make us 
strong to overcome all discouragement. No matter 
how hard the way here is, the end is glorious. No 
matter the fierceness of the battle, the weariness of 
the struggle, the bitterness of the sorrow, the keen- 
ness of the suffering, — this is the final outcome. 

We are now and here children of God. That 
should be glory enough to cheer and inspire us 
for most courageous service. But in this life the 
best is veiled. It is not yet made manifest what 
we shall be when we reach the goal of our life. 
This dull bud will open, and a glorious rose will 
unfold in all its splendor. From this poor, feeble, 
struggling earthly life will emerge at length a 
child of God in glorious beauty. If only we could 
have a glimpse of ourselves, — what we will be ten 
minutes after our friends say we are dead, what 
we will be when we are absent from the body and 
are at home with the Lord, could we go on living 
as if we were made only for the earth? Let us 



32 GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE. 

not grovel any longer. Let us not creep in the 
slime and dust, we who have this glorious future. 
We are "but a little lower than God" — let us 
live to be worthy of our exalted honor. We have 
not yet reached the best. When we see Christ, we 
shall be made like him. 

We should remember that the road to the 
heavenly life starts in this world; that only 
those who have heaven in their hearts here, can 
be admitted into heaven at the last. We must 
receive the beginning of the heavenly purity, the 
heavenly joy, the heavenly peace, into our lives 
in this world. In the Apostles' Creed we say, "I 
believe in the life everlasting." We must practise 
our belief. Heaven must be real to our faith. It 
is real, more real than earth. It is a place. Our 
friends are there, living, loving, remembering us 
still, busy in the service of Christ. Let us make 
heaven real to ourselves — as real as our houses, 
the homes to which we go when we come back 
from a journey. Let us practise the heavenly life 
to-morrow and next day, at home, in business, on 
the street. Let us be the kind of people we would 
be if we were in heaven. 



JUN 6 1907' 



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n!n,P ARY 0F CONGRESS 



029 789 291 5 




